Homeland Security News

Prosecutors say a former Seattle man wanted in connection with an eco-terrorism conspiracy dating back two decades has been arrested in Cuba. Prosecutors say that in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Joseph Mahmoud Dibee joined about a dozen animal rights and environmental activists in setting fires around the West.

Cuban authorities detained Dibee, now 50, before he boarded a flight for Russia. He pleaded not guilty Friday to federal arson and conspiracy charges in Portland, Oregon.

Dibee and 11 co-conspirators known as The Family are linked to more than 40 criminal acts over a six-year period beginning in 1995 that caused more than $45 million in damage, authorities told CBS Portland affiliate KOIN.

Read more: CBS News

Prosecutors charged a 42-year-old man with attempted murder on Wednesday for sending a letter bomb to a bitcoin company in London and over threatening letters he sent to two dozen lawmakers in Sweden, including government members, Swedish authorities said.

The suspect's name is Michael Salonen, a Swedish citizen, according to the charge sheet obtained by The Associated Press. He was arrested in May at Stockholm's international airport upon arrival from Thailand, Sweden's news agency TT said. Sweden's security service SAPO said he had included a white powder in the letters, sent in 2017, but it was determined to be harmless.

SAPO said Wednesday it was involved in the case because it concerned central government members and thereby falls within its scope. A total of 26 persons, including 21 government members and top officials, received the letters. One of those who received the letter was Prime Minister Stefan Lofven.

Read more: Minneapolis Star Tribune

Security officers showed off new technology on Tuesday designed to spot dangerous devices at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

Officers are using thermal imaging technology to stay two steps ahead of suicide bombers and active shooters.

"We look to weave together as tough a defense as we possibly can," said Port Authority Chief Security Officer John Bilich. "With the goal of making us much more secure and strengthening our various layers of security."

The system is known as the Standoff Explosive Detection Unit and is now part of a pilot program in the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

Read more: ABC 7 New York

British authorities said they are considering turning the area around Parliament into a pedestrian zone to prevent future vehicle attacks as police searched three properties for clues about the motivation of a man who plowed into cyclists and pedestrians.

Local media on Wednesday identified the suspect as Salih Khater, a 29-year-old British citizen of Sudanese origin. Police searched the suspect’s apartment in Birmingham, as well as another property in the city and a third in Nottingham. A Facebook page for a man of the same name says he lives in Birmingham, works as a shop manager, and has studied at Sudan University of Science and Technology.

British authorities do not name suspects until they are formally charged.

The incident was the second in less than 18 months in which a suspected terrorist used a vehicle to attack the heart of Britain’s government. Over the past two decades authorities have tightened security around Parliament with fences, crash barriers and armed police. Now the rise of vehicle attacks around the world is triggering calls for traffic to be barred from the area.

“So some of the things we’re keen to do, working with the Palace of Westminster, working with the council and the experts, is to part-pedestrianize that part of Parliament Square immediately outside the gates to Parliament, but at the same time making it attractive,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan told the BBC.

Read more:  AP

A Taliban attack on a military outpost in the northern province of Baghlan in the early hours of Wednesday killed as many as 44 Afghan police and soldiers, provincial officials said, as the insurgents kept up pressure on government forces.

There was no immediate comment from the ministry of defense but officials in the area said nine police and 35 soldiers were killed in the attack, the latest in a series that have killed dozens of members of the security forces in provinces across Afghanistan.

The attack came as the situation in the embattled central city of Ghazni eased after the Taliban said they had ordered forces out after five days of fighting that killed and wounded hundreds and left the city a burned-out wreck.

The city hospital was overcrowded with hundreds of wounded people and dozens of bodies and people desperately searching for relatives among the dead and wounded.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was providing dressing packages and oral and intravenous medicine to treat wounded at the provincial hospital.

Read more:  Reuters